Week 10 Session: The Loyalty Card
The loyalty card isn't a discount. It's a toll booth, and the currency it collects is a complete record of everything you have ever wanted enough to buy twice
26 April 2027
Before the session#
Find your own loyalty card, or a supermarket’s sign-up form, and read what it actually asks for.
In the session#
Baudrillard’s simulacrum is useful here: the “reward” simulates gratitude while performing surveillance, and the two have become indistinguishable to the shopper holding the card. A discount is the fee the store pays you to consent to being tracked, and it is a very good deal — for the store. We map what a full year of one shopper’s loyalty data actually describes about them.
Afterwards#
The card follows you to the car, which is where week eleven picks the argument back up.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you can say what data field the card actually needs, versus what it collects
- you can name one discount you've received and what it cost you in information
- you can describe who else the store's data could plausibly be sold to
Teaching team
- Idris Fenn — tutor